North Korea in Ukraine: What It Means for the World

In October 2024, the news broke that North Korea was sending troops to Russia to participate in Moscow’s war of aggression against Ukraine. Although most international responses to this development involved condemnation of this latest escalation, there was also speculation as to what North Korean forces would do and the nature of the arrangement under which they were sent.

As the answers to these questions become clearer, it is time to examine not only the effects and effectiveness of North Korean troops in combat, but the wider implications for international security and conflict management. Simply put, by turning to foreign forces, Russia shows its reliance on military means to achieve its national objectives and desperation to reduce the costs to the Russian people. Should Russia emerge from the war able to claim success, it would set several unwelcome precedents.

Thus far, North Korean forces seem to be fulfilling the role of “cannon fodder” for Russia. The Kremlin’s strategy over the past year has been to take advantage of superior resources in numbers and materiel to gain ground, slowly and at great cost, in eastern Ukraine. Capturing a few farms and villages will not, by itself, win the war. The goal is to generate a narrative not only that Russia is winning, but that Ukrainian success is impossible. Should these ideas take hold, Western governments may reconsider aiding what Moscow hopes would be perceived as a futile cause.

It would seem, however, that the Russian strategy has run into a manpower problem that led to the use of North Koreans. Russia must walk a fine line with its public, demonstrating at the same time that it can claim military progress while not sustaining casualties that would undermine support for the government.

In this light, the use of foreign forces smacks of desperation. Russia has tried to keep the presence of these troops quiet, possibly to avoid any perception that there are gaps in the armor of numerical superiority that they rely upon. But there is another fear motivating the Kremlin. Russians have strong knowledge of their history and are aware that there is a point (as yet unknown) at which high casualties will cause public support for the war to cease, as occurred in 1917 and 1989. For the last three years, the Russian government has generally succeeded in promoting a narrative that the costs of “losing” Ukraine to a Western orientation would be greater than those of continuing the fight. The strategy of maintaining a marginally successful offensive through most of 2024 in order to persuade the West that Ukraine is losing the war comes at a cost of ticking down the clock toward the point where Russian casualties become unacceptable.

Hence the usefulness of having North Koreans to do some of the dying: It could well postpone the day when Russians withdraw their support for the war.

As 2025 begins, it does seem that North Koreans are dying. Reporting is spotty but consistent that North Korean forces are taking casualties, possibly in large numbers. Despite being billed as “special” forces, the North Korean soldiers seem ill prepared for a modern battlefield. Although expected from rushing raw troops into combat, the waste of lives is tragic and illustrates the importance of the arrangement to both the governments of Russia and North Korea. Moscow needs human fuel for its offensives, while Pyongyang clearly believes access to Russian funds and technology is worth the cost in lives. The North Korean forces to date have had a negligible military impact from an initial deployment estimated at around 12,000 men, so it will remain to be seen if the two governments will try for greater effect by adding to the troop numbers on the battlefield.

The implications of the North Korean presence are serious. The timing of the arrival of the North Koreans is not accidental. Russia is making a case that Ukraine and its supporters should seek a ceasefire before Ukraine loses more territory. It happens that this coincides with the transition in U.S. leadership to a second Trump administration that is perceived as more willing to cut a deal than its predecessor. Moscow’s aim will be to try to force the new U.S. administration to choose between the prospect of an early ceasefire and a sustainable end to hostilities, hoping that the United States will misidentify the goal as an immediate, though temporary, halt to fighting rather than security for Ukraine. By augmenting its available combat capabilities, Russia hopes to strengthen its case. Should it succeed, much as it did in the 2014 EU-brokered arrangement, the West will once again have acquiesced to military aggression and rewarded its perpetrator.

This is not to say that it would be better to prolong the war than to conclude it, but rather to point out some of the complications arising from Russia's expansion of the conflict by importing additional forces, including the increased difficulty involved in trying to end the fighting.

By using soldiers from a developing country, presumably to die in place of Russians, the Kremlin has effectively declared that a Korean life has less value than a Russian one. When combined with tactics that willingly trade hundreds of human lives for the occupation of a few square kilometers of land, any pretense of morality is shattered.

Of course, the use of foreign forces is nothing new. The United Kingdom and France made extensive use of colonial troops in both World Wars, but are exploitative colonial empires the best behavioral models? That they are serving as such provides a telling indicator of Russian war aims. Moscow began the war to force a change in government on Ukraine from one with European aspirations to one that would dance to Russia’s tune. That kind of colonialist mindset has informed the Kremlin’s policy choices since the Cold War and continues to do so. Bringing in what are perceived as inferior troops is but another symptom.

In addition to the racism inherent in the North Korea-Russia arrangement, there is yet another negative dimension. Being able to import soldiers at (presumably) low cost allows governments to sustain wars practically indefinitely. Wars, particularly those involving democracies, generally conclude when a critical mass of the population grows tired of the cost, especially the human cost. Societies will support a war so long as the perceived advantage of continuing the conflict is greater than the apparent cost to stopping the fight. For the past three years, this has been the case for most Ukrainians; the hardships brought on by the Russian aggression are not perceived to be as bad as those that would accrue from a government that was a puppet of Moscow.

Loss of popular support most often is triggered by loss of life as battlefield casualties pile up. Consider how during the 1960s most of the U.S. population came to oppose the Vietnam War as nightly reports of dead Americans led the news. Ukraine is not Vietnam, and the perceived stakes for both Russia and Ukraine are higher, so the tolerance for casualties is greater, but it is not unlimited. There will be a point at which one or both of the populations affected will shift to opposing continued bloodshed, as Russia itself did in 1917 and overthrew a centuries-old Tsarist system.

By importing soldiers to die in place of Russians, the Kremlin is attempting to postpone the tipping point by reducing the social cost of war to the Russian population. If the burden of dying to support a regime’s ambitions can be outsourced, war, the act of imposing a state’s will through violence, becomes more viable as a standard instrument of national policy. Given Russian behavior since the Cold War, this is a recipe for trouble. Moscow has interfered in most former Soviet states repeatedly, normally under pretense of protecting pro-Russian movements. The availability of imported forces at low cost to the Russian state would allow frozen conflicts to become forever wars, albeit at a horrible cost to North Korea. By deferring the human cost to others, Russia is making war a more acceptable alternative to diplomacy and other “difficult” means of statecraft.

There is another disturbing linkage to the Russian strategy. The arrival of North Korean forces was timed to coincide with the announcement of an updated nuclear weapons doctrine. Although the degree to which this step lowered Russia’s nuclear threshold is debatable, the availability of foreign forces has become an element of an overall campaign of blackmail and intimidation involving nuclear weapons. Should this end up being perceived as succeeding in bringing about a halt to the war on terms favorable to Russia, nuclear threats will have demonstrated their usefulness as instruments of statecraft, and governments may reconsider their commitments to nonproliferation in light of this perceived utility. Even more chilling is the prospect that, should Russia’s strategy be perceived as succeeding, a government could decide to base its defense on nuclear weapons and threats, backed up by a few “expendable” troops.

What will result from the North Korea-Russia collaboration? Thus far, there seems to be little change on the battlefield, with further reports of casualties surfacing. It is unclear what Pyongyang is getting in return, although there has been speculation that it is receiving military technology that could contribute to potential conflict on the Korean Peninsula. That the North Korean forces seem to be performing poorly when facing modern combat may prove a deterrent to military adventurism in the short term but could help focus Kim Jong Un’s wish list for further compensation should the North Korean presence in Ukraine persist.

On a broader scale, the outcome of the conflict will set precedents for how governments handle such matters in the future. Should importing foreign forces to take casualties, using nuclear blackmail as a tool, and targeting civilians be perceived as leading to military success, the practices will be repeated. Making an immediate halt to combat the only goal, instead of a sustainable end to the war, risks rewarding and encouraging such policies. This was tried in 2014 and emboldened Moscow to continue to seek to modify Ukraine’s government through violence. That it now must turn to outside forces to support its aggression shows not just a disregard for human life but evidence that the Kremlin believes that force is the most efficient way to further its interests.